


A Universe Without George Kirk

by subducting



Series: Please Don't Go [2]
Category: Star Trek
Genre: Death, Gen, Grief, Grief/Mourning, Love, M/M, USS Kelvin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:17:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subducting/pseuds/subducting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day of the USS Kelvin disaster, a young Christophe Pike is aboard one of the relief crews first on the scene following the explosion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Universe Without George Kirk

_“You seem a little old to be fresh off the shuttle,” the cadet teases, laughing with his eyes. Chris’ expression says that he’s considering turning right around and getting back on the damn shuttle, but as he turns away the cadet’s face falls out of the amusement immediately and he navigates around the shorter man- with surprising ease, Chris thinks, for someone built along the lines of a bear. “Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.” The younger man waves it off with one hand whilst the other leaps to his temple, mumbling something. “Hey- I really didn’t mean to-“ This time he’s more amused than annoyed. “Really, it’s fine, I should’ve expected a little ribbing. Just… bein’ too sensitive, I guess.” He offers the other man a hand, with a genuine, easy smile. Something about the cadet’s presence puts him at ease- the way he’d immediately stopped teasing when he’d noticed the discomfort he was causing. Or perhaps the way he illuminates with delighted relief that he’s forgiven. Taking Chris’ hand, he said, “George Kirk, nice to meet you.”_

***

Pieces of the Kelvin skimmed past the windows, bouncing off the deflectors with metallic pings and twangs. Chris was stood gazing numbly at the debris, deaf to the whistling intercom relaying messages about the search for the ship, the rescue efforts for the shuttles, medical reports and names and orders flying by like shooting stars. His hands didn’t shake, but it felt like his heart was- trembling and sinking in an unstable orbit, spiralling loose from and semblance of gravity and falling through the constellations of the disparate cloud of parts that was all that was left of his best friend George Kirk. There wouldn’t be a body- god, there couldn’t be. Every last bit of him would have been shredded and torn apart. The thought wasn’t one Chris wanted to have, and it’s sudden abrasive presence caused the man to bend at the middle, as if he’d been snapped clean in half with the pain. He pressed the heel of his palm to his eye, closing them against the view as his hands shifted, both pushing into his hair in desperation as tears budded in the corners of his crinkled up vision.

There was a sharp hiss from behind him, but for once Pike couldn’t snap to attention as the doors opened . He knew only a few people knew where he is. He knew who it is that had come to find him. Marcus laid a hand on his shoulder and said gruffly, “I’m sorry, Chris. I’ve given you all the time I can, I need you in the med bay.” Chris took a deep breath in through his nose and hoisted his shoulders back onto a formal frame with a nod, chasing the tears from his eyes along lines that were newly formed. “Atta boy,” rumbled the Captain, and both men walked from the room. “Medical bay, sir?” Marcus avoided his eye. “Yep.” Chris stopped, arms laced behind his back as he peered at the captain. “Sir- why?” Something in his voice made the cadet nervous, and his apprehension grew when the other man sighed heavily. “It’s Winona Kirk. She’s in the med bay now... doctor says a familiar face is what she needs.”

For a moment, Christopher felt like the most selfish person on any planet in any sky. He’d not given a thought, not one. His expression told a story Marcus wasn’t too interested in hearing, but he swallowed and nodded. “Of course, sir,” he said, pressing a hand to his forehead. Marcus nodded his approval and they resumed pace. “She’s in a bad way, Chris. You gonna be able to handle this?” Pike’s head instinctively bobbed in affirmation, before his brain had had a chance to deny it. No, no I wont be able to, how do you expect me to handle someone else’s grief when I can’t handle my own? Some of the panic must’ve fluttered across his expression because the next thing Marcus said was “You don’t have to do it, son, if you’re not up to it.” Chris pulled in a steadying breath and shook his head. “No, no- I’ll go…” They reached the medical bay, and a doctor was waiting to show him where Winona was waiting. Waiting for her mind to stop waiting and start feeling… Chris felt like he still wasn’t quite sure where his shock ended and his grief began.

The ship was big enough to have a couple of rooms set aside for when crewmembers felt overwhelmed by the largeness of space, the sudden awareness of the utter cold enveloping the tiny metal frames of the ships that they liked to think would keep them safe. The distant, muted thunder of the Kelvin’s hull disintegrating against the rescue ships’ atmospheric cloaks was a painful reminder as small groups darted through the drifting ruins in suits, searching the debris like fish around coral for anything that could be salvaged or saved. The room itself was nothing like the rest of the spaces around Starfleet- the occasionally claustrophobic corridors and brutally functional command modules weren’t exactly the most relaxing environment, and it was always sensible to have somewhere that people could go to forget, for the moment, their surroundings. Space madness was something that Chris was no stranger to- even the colonists who lived on Elysium, a solid planet, got homesick and fatigued from the experience. That was why Win was on the ship in the first place- she’d wanted the baby to be delivered on Earth.

Winona Kirk was a paradigm of Starfleet’s ethos. She was competent, clever and calm, and her and George had been set to become a nigh unstoppable force of nature. They were so bright, so brilliant, so full of energy and promise, and for all the good it had done them. It was all so sudden and so cruel, the thought of Winona growing old alone, her son not knowing his father. The thought of of a universe without George Kirk.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to see when he entered the room. His and George’s friend from the academy, George’s co-worker, George’s girlfriend, George’s fiancé… In the end it was none of those things. Winona’s grief made her a stranger, her expression pulling in anguished ways that showed the strain it was giving her not to cry. She was facing a window, the light from the same scene that Chris had just been observing himself falling through her tangled hair and pooling in deep shadows under her eyes, staining her outline with deep red. For a moment she was elevated from time and place, her grief so base and human that she might’ve been plucked from a Greek frieze or a middle aged tapestry. Then she turned to him and the light fell from her face, leaving her looking hollow and lost. She made a broken sound in her throat that could have been his name, and he smiled feebly, feeling like a corpse himself as he crossed the room.

For a very long moment, they stared at one another, awkward grief permeating the soft shapes of the room like the ever-present hum of the ship’s movement. “I- I’m so sorry, Winona,” he said, his apology sounding like he had scraped it off the floor and pieced it out of wreckage. She nodded and spoke in a voice that was quieter than a whisper, more mouthing “thank you” than saying it. He couldn’t carry on meeting her eyes, and in any case they were unfocussed, sliding past him as if expecting George to come following, just like old days. George and Chris, Chris and George. For a while, you never saw one without the other. In the end, he returned his gaze to the sight out of the window, squinting against the blinding light as she followed his line of vision to the floating debris. “He saved us all,” she murmured vaguely, sounding almost a little awed, and Chris realised that just as he was still stuck in limbo at the moment they’d got the message en route to the disaster, she was still in the shuttle, sailing inexorably away from the future she’d planned. The grief would come later, the true grief, in all the shades of panic and fury, desperation and madness and hours spent screaming to the darkness between the stars. But the pain was too near to be real, like a needle so thin it couldn’t be felt as it delivered poison straight to the heart. So they just hovered, caught in the gravity of their grief.

***

Hours, minutes, aeons, moments later, the enveloping quiet was broken by soft noises from the corner of the room. Chris turned towards the cot but Win just drifted to sit at a curved window bay. “You should go and meet him, Chris,” she murmured thinly, “George-“ her voice cut itself off with a strangled, small noise and she put her hand to her mouth. The mention of him, the idea of him, the reminder that h wasn’t there and that he should be. Chris shuffled numbly over to the crib, hearing the emotion course through Winona in a detached way, still not quite ready to feel it. He lent on the end of the cot with his elbows, observing the baby through deadened eyes. He was gurgling happily to himself, totally unaware of all he had lost already in his brief few hours in the word. “Yeah, you’d better get used to it kid,” he sighed under his breath, reaching down with one finger to let the infant snag it with his wayward, curious arms. Baby Jim Kirk burbled happily to himself and attempted to insert his new friend’s sleeve into his gummy mouth. That was the point that Chris noticed his eyes. George’s damn eyes. He gently extricated his arm from the cot as the warm heat of pain started to spread like a flame. “Win, I can’t,” he muttered, letting the excuse fall as he hurried from the room. Winona didn’t appear to notice him leaving- he couldn’t help her, anymore than he could stop himself from feeling grief. It was as impossible as stopping his best friend, his idol, his George from dying. He couldn’t face the knowledge that was written all over the kid’s face that George Kirk was not going to be coming back.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fanfic of any length so.. be gentle? and uh, thanks for reading ^^


End file.
